My thoughts on what good SEO is!

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There are many false prophets offering miracle SEO solutions. Often they provide nothing more than a load of poor quality links by spamming online directories and forums. Often this is looked on unfavourably by Google and it certainly does nothing for your business reputation to have some clown posting on your behalf in trade related forums.

In my opinion web developers should take a broader view on SEO and it should be seen as one strand of a complete digital marketing strategy -

1) in terms of the site itself the operative word is 'optimisation' no one can promise 1000's of hits or keyword world domination but an SEO expert worth their salt should ensure that your site will be as effective as possible based on industry assumptions around Google's algorithms and on the keyword research they've conducted for your business.

2) they should provide regular top draw new content for your site - e.g. blog management - I'd want to know their credentials on this, see previous work and agree topics for pieces in advance to ensure direct input and a degree of quality assurance.

Original content should be about your business, market your services, build your reputation - of course it needs to be keyword rich but SEO benefits shouldn't come at the expense of your credibility or undermine your product.

3) I'd expect under this wider strategy to manage relevant social networking and promote your business via Facebook, Twitter and industry relevant blogs and forums. Again this should contribute, raise profile and network.

4) They should report regularly via analytics and adapt the strategy (in conjunction with the client) as trends develop.

5) this is a long-game, there is no quick fix.

I wouldn't expect to get this for £20 a month or whatever these cowboys are charging but it's a damn sight cheaper than hiring a full time marketing manager.

Really I want to stress that there are options out there that are provided by design and marketing experts who can really enhance someone's online presence but that it's important to view SEO as only part of a wider strategy.

SEObessive compulsive disorder....very good....may I steal that for a blog article - full credit given for any plagiarism!?

I would generally avoid using the term SEO with a client once we've had chance to meet face to face and instead focusing on marketing strategy for their business. SEO in terms these monkeys talk about should be a integral part of the web development process not some expensive add-on.

My original rant was largely spurred from a recent email from a client (for whom we manage their social media and web content) saying they had received an email from someone charging £75 to get them at the top of Google. Too good to be true but in these delicate economic times small businesses are drawn in by these promises of keyword domination and instant fixes.

You're right though D856C there exists a lot of awe and myth around 'SEO' and online marketing, sufficient enough to get often savvy business people thinking 75 quid can make them the next Amazon. They wouldn't fall for such cheap tricks in the offline world.

Sure. It's not proprietary. I do recommend you steal it, don't copy. What I mean by that is really understand the disorder, don't just repeat the term without the symptoms.

Like OCD, SEOCD is full of repetitive rituals. An obsessive compulsive may have to lock, then unlock a door 30 time before being able to walk through a doorway. Is it really that much different checking your position in SERPs repeatedly, before you can do anything else.

Traffic is everything. Get a conversion rate of 0.00023% because of bad content and worse design? The answer isn't to up conversions, the SEOCD answer is to up traffic.

Googlebot is all. Does the page read like SEO gibberish because key phrases were repeated, with no consideration given to usability, marketablity, readability? That's SEOCD. There is never a reason for a page or any specific target user but googlebot.

Finally, like OCD, there is no recognition anything could be wrong. The whole idea of SEO being everything is that -- if you don't obsess over SEO -- nothing else matters. These people will NEVER turn their attention to users or customer conversions, simply because the obsessive compulsion convinces them if they do traffic will drop to zero. And the excuse for neglecting usability or even simply readability will be it would harm SE rank. These people are PARALYZED by the thought that page rank would go down by one. And everything that is not SEO is bad; and will drop rank, despite evidence to the contrary.

Interesting, thanks for the context. You see this 'condition' with the misapplication of tools like Google Analytics too, an obsession with hits and keyword searches and no focus on how users are interacting with your site and using this data to improve experience. The sooner that 'SEO' as a practice of hammering keywords becomes obsolete the better - maybe not too far in the future?